So it is another amazing edition of fruits and veggies challenge and today I am presenting my how I complicated cooking stuffed eggplants and peppers recipe. lol I always write about how cooking can be simple and not time-consuming and here I am today doing the complete opposite. This recipe was time-consuming and it was a bit complicated. I also always say to experiment with food and have some fun it also. So even though it was time-consuming I enjoyed doing it. Got out of my cooking comfort zone and tried something different. How did it turn out? Well, you can be the judge of it? lol

Just like always before we get started let's turn on some of your favorite music to relax a bit. My choice of music today was:

Feeling little more relaxed? Great. Let's get into the recipe for today. :)

Ingredients

• Amaranth or rice (my recommendation is rice.)

• eggplant, red and green pepper.

• can of red kidney beans

• onion

• 1 potato

• mushrooms (your choice which kind)

• zucchini

• 1 clover of garlic

• 1 bottle of tomato sauce

• Spices -pepper, paprika, kurkuma, himalayan salt, rosemary.

Add the ingredients and spices you like to the recipe. Have some fun with it. Make it your own.

Preparation

STEP 1

You will have to pre-soak the amaranth. Minimum pre-soaking time from my knowledge about is 3 hours. My recommendation if you are going to try this recipe is to soak it the night before. Amaranth has some amazing health benefits and it is a nutritional powerhouse full of basically everything your body needs. And, it is gluten-free. So if it's not part of your diet you should consider adding it in. Here is some info about it.

STEP 2

So start by cooking the amaranth first because it takes about 40 minutes to be done. While amaranth cooking it is time to prepare the rest. Start by cutting in half, and cleaning bell peppers and eggplant. With bell peppers, you don't have much work but with eggplants, you have to cut the inside out. Be careful not to make a hole at the bottom because you will lose all the juice we are trying to keep inside while cooking through that hole.

Put little salt at the bottom of both eggplant and peppers. You can also add some pepper as well.

STEP 3

Do not throw away the insides of the eggplant. Save them and cut them into little pieces. Then cut the rest of the veggies in the same way as well. In the smallest pieces possible. Cut the mushrooms as well, but don't mix them with the rest of veggies. Leave them aside. After everything is nicely cut put it all in one bowl and add the tomato juice and all the spices and mix until it all well blended.

STEP 4

Amaranth should be done by now. Let it cool off for a bit. It should have kind of sticky texture similar to the polenta. I actually like the way it tastes. After amaranth is cooled down a bit it is time to stuff the eggplants and peppers. But before you start stuffing preheat the oven first. Start with adding the amaranth first at the bottom. Then add mushrooms second, beans third, and tomato sauce and veggies mixture on top to cover it all up nicely. It should look something like this.

Stuff them all in the same order and place them on a tinfoil for baking and you are basically done. All you have to do now is place them in the oven and wait until it all bakes. It is actually not complicated to make this dish, but it is time-consuming preparing it all. Cutting the veggies, and preparing the amaranth and cooking it. So my suggestion to you makes this a family made dinner. Get your kids involved. Get them to help you cut everything up and prepare it. Make it a fun family meal preparation day. Listen to some music together. Have fun with it. Everything tastes better if its prepared with love.

I know what you are thinking? Screw the baking part... It looks so good I might just dig right now. lol Don't do it. hehe

Place it in the oven and let it bake for about 30-40min. I really did not look at how long it took to bake it. I just checked it every 10-15 minutes. I can tell you one thing. My apartment here in Italy sure smelled amazing as all the delicious juices and flavors started to bake and blend together. I was thinking that even if my experiment does not turn out good at least it smelled good. 🤣 After about 40 minutes here is how it all turned out. First the eggplant.

And the second the green pepper...

It actually turned to be delicious. I was actually surprised how it tasted and blended well together. It is vegan, gluten-free, delicious, and nutritious. Basically, all that your body needs is in this meal right here. Even though I would rate this little fun experiment with food project a success I already gut some ideas on how to make it even better next time I try it. But, it sure is fun to get out of my cooking comfort zone, use my imagination, and come up with some new recipes. Especially if they turn out as good as this little cooking experiment. But, there is room for improvement no doubt.

My Suggestions For Improvement.

Even though amaranth is amazing it takes a long time to prepare and it does not really absorb much of the flavor from other ingredients. I think in this case I would replace amaranth with either couscous or rice. As they have better ability to suck in all the flavors. The second improvement would be to make my own tomato sauce for the veggies. These are just coming from the top of my head right now. But I would love to hear what you can suggest for me try adding or doing differently?

Anyways, guys, that is about it for me. Thank you, Lena, for such an amazing challenge and I hope you guys enjoy my submission. This is one amazing way to promote healthy vegan dishes and I am honestly learning from each week of other people's submissions. As I am still discovering the world of veganism this challenge is sure helping me a lot. It inspires to try new things and add some more deliciousness to my vegan journey. So thank you all.

Good luck to everybody this week, looking forward to seeing other submissions, much love,

dbjegovic 💓💓💓